Consultancy: Mid-level Software Developer - Office of Global Innovations, New York HQ

The UNICEF Office of Innovation is seeking a Mid-level Software Developer for open-source projects. Duration: 11½ months

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

For every child, an equal opportunity...

UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support realizing children's rights are critical to improving their lives. The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the startup thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

UNICEF's Office of Innovation creates opportunities for the world's children by focusing on where new markets can meet their vital needs. We do this by:

• Connecting youth communities (or more broadly -- anyone disconnected or under-served) to decision-makers, and to each other, to deliver informed, relevant and sustained programmes that build better, stronger futures for children.
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach -- in a traditionally risk-averse field -- to harness rapidly moving innovations and apply them to serve the needs of all children.
• Creating new models of partnership that leverage core business values across the public, private and academic sectors in order to deliver fast, and lasting results for children.

The Office of Innovation specifically looks to form partnerships around frontier technologies (like drones and UAVs, blockchain, 21st century skills, urban technologies, new banking tools, wearables and sensors, or 3D-Printing) that exist at the intersection of $100 billion business markets and 1 billion person needs -  and to identify how they can grow and scale profitably and inclusively.

We're an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling new technologies and practices. With our partners, we focus on convening and collaborating on new and different solutions, low- and high-tech,  by:

• Looking at the 2-5 year horizon to evaluate emerging and trending technologies and to see how UNICEF can work with the private sector on doing better business while improving essential services for children; 
  
  
• Investing in early stage solutions that show great potential to positively impact children in the 0-2 year future including the Venture Fund that invests in open source technology solutions from start-ups based in UNICEF's programme countries;
  
  
• Identifying proven solutions that can be implemented at national scale in multiple countries - taking the ideas that help thousands in one country, bringing them to dozens of countries across multiple sectors, and impacting the lives of millions of children.

Within the Office of Innovation, the SW development team supports the different project plans by implementing prototypes, following the Innovation principles, that allow UNICEF country offices to test the different technologies. This team require constant interaction with project teams, including colleagues in Country and Field offices, as well as engagement with partners and with the open-source community, to contribute and support our work.

How can you make a difference? 

We are seeking a Mid-level Software Developer for open-source projects, whereby:

• You will create, and contribute to, open-source tools intended to use real-time information to inform life-saving humanitarian responses to emergency situations. Our github repositories host code designed to ingest, aggregate, and serve data, as well as generate insights based on formulas and algorithms provided by the data science team.
  
  
• You will develop applications to map schools and visualize their level of connectivity to the rest of the world. Other full stack applications you create will combine open and private sector data sets to help forecast, visualize and facilitate response to epidemic outbreaks and natural disasters. Please see:  (www.unicefstories.org/magicbox)
  
  
• You will contribute to the development and maintenance of open source software projects and systems that support country offices, while staying current with the latest technologies, plying them according to best practices and advising and supporting the Office of Innovation Ventures in topics related to software development.
  
  
• You will expand the UNICEF Innovation GitHub repository with open source applications that demonstrate the work of the data science team while iteratively prototyping. You will work with software partners (university internships, private sector partners, etc) on our projects.

To qualify as a champion for every child you will have…

• University degree in Computer Science or equivalent work experience
• A minimum of two years of professional experience

Specialized Experience and Knowledge required for the assignment

• Javascript front-end frameworks (React / Redux, Angular, etc)
• Languages: node.js, ruby, python, bash
• Cloud services: Azure, AWS, etc
• Geospatial DBs, libraries and data structures
• Sql and NoSQL database systems
• Experience with git, pull requests, and continuous integration and deployment.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and run time optimization
• Experience with Hadoop based technologies e.g. Spark a plus
• Willingness to travel (sometimes on short notice) and develop software in the field, directly with end-users
• Open-source community active

Language

Fluency in English (verbal and written is required).

Applications must include:

• Cover letter, including link(s) to any demo*
• CV
• Please indicate your qualifications, availability as well as your financial bid, i.e. daily/monthly rate (in US$), to undertake the terms of reference above.  Applications submitted without a financial bid will not be considered further.

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Payment Plan

• Monthly payment, based on monthly tasks and progress reports, approved upon monthly review with supervisor.
• Consultant is responsible for his own health insurance
• Consultant is eligible for standard DSA for all work-related travel
• Consultants are responsible for assuming costs for obtaining visas and travel insurance

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.